A stock quote looks like a cockpit dashboard, but most of it is five numbers wearing costumes. Here is the plain version.

Price is simply the cost of one share right now — more precisely, the price of the most recent trade between a buyer and a seller.

Change is how far the price has moved today, shown in dollars and in percent. A $1 drop sounds dramatic until you learn the stock costs $500; the percent is the honest measure.

Open, high, and low are the day’s story so far: where the price started this morning, the highest it reached, and the lowest it dipped.

Volume is how many shares changed hands today. High volume means the stock is actively being argued about; low volume means a quiet day.

Market cap — short for market capitalization — is the price of one share multiplied by the total number of shares. It answers “how big is this company, in the market’s eyes?” A $10 stock can belong to a far bigger company than a $200 stock if it has many more shares. Price alone tells you almost nothing about size.

Bid and ask are the two prices waiting in line: the bid is the most any buyer is currently offering, the ask is the least any seller will accept. The small gap between them is called the spread.

That is the whole dashboard. Everything else on a quote page is commentary built on top of these few facts.

This post is educational only and is not financial advice. Always do your own research or talk to a licensed advisor before investing.